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| Claudia Gonson, John Woo, Sam Davol and Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields at Variety Theater. Photo by Clay Walker. |
By my count, Stephin Merritt only smiled five times during the course of the Magnetic Field's Saturday night show in Raleigh. Mind you, most of those were half-smiles in response to his own acerbic comments. But they were smiles nonetheless and that makes me think Merritt hates this live thing - this prostitution of art.
But Merritt's downer attitude was not enough to dampen the mood for Claudia Gonson (who, along with Sam Davol, added percussion "Sweetness and Light" in Portastatic's opening set ). Gonson effervescence and melodic voice were the counterpoint to Merritt's baritone and melancholy. The two bantered throughout the set (while the remaining band mates were silent).
Highlights included Stephin Merritt deriding audience members preparing to write a blog post about the show and his insistence that the band does not improvise, only to keep on playing while the lights and sound spontaneously cut out during "Take Ecstasy With Me." Merritt, unfazed, kept playing while Gonson seemed a little put off, but the unplugged sound of Gonson on the piano, Merritt's bazooki, John Woo's guitar (no, not that John Woo) and especially Davol's cello made for the concert's most beautiful moment.
But as a whole, the band played a tight set, missing nary a note and picking the highlights of the Gothic Archies, the Magnetic Fields and the 6ths. With a set that mixed tracks most of the tracks from Distortion ("California Girls," "Zombie Boy," "Too Drunk to Dream," "The Nun's Litany," etc.) to Merritt's odd catalog of showtunes to The Charm of the Highway Strip ("Lonely Highway"), it was a beautiful show, ending promptly at 11 p.m. because of a union curfew.
Even if Merritt hated it, Meymandi Concert Hall's audience loved it.
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